STS-91 Day 10 Highlights

Discovery's crew will focus today on preparations for Friday's
return home, checking out the equipment that will be needed and
stowing away gear in anticipation of a 1 p.m. touchdown tomorrow at
the Kennedy Space Center. Fl.

The crew was awakened this morning to "Interplanet Janet," a song
from the "Schoolhouse Rock" educational videotape series, played in
honor of DiscoveryastronautJanet Kavandi..

At about 7:30 am Central time today, Commander Charlie Precourt,
Pilot Dom Gorie and Mission Specialist Wendy Lawrence will begin tests
of the shuttle's flight control systems used for landing. The checks
will include the function of the wing flaps and rudder, cockpit
displays and controls and landing navigation equipment. At about 8:35
am Central, Precourt will test fire the shuttle's Reaction Control
System steering jets to ensure they are in good condition for the trip
home.

The astronauts will take a brief break from their landing
preparations at 11:51 a.m. Central to answer questions from reporters
with the Associated Press and ABC Radio. The crew will finish up work
with the scientific investigations under way inside the shuttle's
cabin today and begin packing up the gear for landing. However,
scientific observations by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), an
innovative particle detector mounted in the cargo bay, will continue
until only a few hours before Discovery begins its descent from
orbit. The AMS is hoped to provide scientists insight into the
existence of dark matter and antimatter in the universe.

The seven astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery completed
most of their pre-landing packing today and made sure that all of the
systems needed for landing are working well. Touchdown at Kennedy
Space Center in Florida is scheduled for 1 p.m. CDT Friday.

Commander Charlie Precourt, Pilot Dom Gorie and Mission Specialist
Wendy Lawrence test fired the Reaction Control System steering jets to
ensure they are ready to guide the shuttle as it begins re-entering
the Earth's atmosphere. They also checked out the workings of the wing
flaps and rudder, cockpit displays and controls, and landing
navigation equipment that will be used once the shuttle is back in the
atmosphere and flying like a glider. All systems checked out
perfectly.

The rest of the day was devoted to finishing up work with the
scientific experiments on board. Chief among those was the Alpha
Magnetic Spectrometer, which collected a total of about 1,000 minutes
of data on tape that scientists hope will help them find the "dark
matter" and "antimatter" that some speculate may make up a large
portion of the universe's overall mass. The innovative particle
detector will continue collecting data in the cargo bay until only a
few hours before Discovery begins its descent.

The crew packed away the bulk of its gear and closed out the
Spacehab module. At one point, Precourt asked Mission Control if it
would be all right to have one crew member sleep in the SPACEHAB
overnight, but when flight controllers informed him that the
temperature in the module would rise to about 84 degrees the crew
decided to close out the module and sleep in the shuttle's cabin.

Bedtime for the crew is 7:06 p.m., with wake-up scheduled for 3:06
a.m. Central time. The astronauts will move into their deorbit
preparation timeline at 7:47 a.m. The first landing opportunity calls
for a deorbit burn at 11:52 a.m. and landing at 1 p.m. The second
opportunity begins with a deorbit burn at 1:29 p.m. and a landing in
Florida at 2:36 p.m. Forecasters report that weather conditions look
favorable, with only a minor concern about smoke from brush fires
obscuring the runway.